N.Y. court spokesman fired after bragging about 'doing nothing' in butt-dial to New York Post

A longtime spokesman for the New York state court system has been fired after he accidentally “butt-dialed” a New York Post reporter and bragged about how he gets paid for doing virtually nothing.

“New Yorkers look to their Court System for excellence and accountability, and we will always act to apply those standards to all of our employees all across New York State,” the Unified Court System’s spokesman Lucian Chalfen said in a statement Thursday, the Albany Times Union reported. “While there are occasional abuses of office, we take those abuses extremely seriously and whenever we learn about them we will always act to hold the offenders accountable.”

After speaking with The New York Post about his job duties, David Bookstaver accidentally “butt-dialed” the reporter back and proceeded to leave a four-minute voicemail while talking to at least two other people about how he’s “not doing anything” and “barely” shows up to work while reportedly earning a $166,000-plus salary.

Mr. Bookstaver, who was set to retire Oct. 1, was replaced by Mr. Chalfen as the state agency’s chief spokesman in January 2016, but retained his Office of Court Administration “communications director” title and salary, The Post reported.

Sources had told The Post that Mr. Bookstaver only showed up to work between two and four days a week and never came to work on Fridays. In his accidental voicemail, Mr. Bookstaver basically confirmed what the sources had claimed:

“But, frankly, look, the bottom line: The story’s true. I’m not doing anything. I barely show up to work and I’ve been caught,” he said, adding that “they took away all my responsibilities and left my pay,” The Post reported.

“Look, the bottom line is, I’ll suffer through a terribly embarrassing story and then go get my f–king pension and retire,” he said in the voicemail.